What Never Should Be: Two In The Hand
by blucougar57
Summary: Secretive behaviour and a persistent PC creates headaches for Captain Jack as he and Ianto continue working to reinvent Torchwood; and all the while the universe doesn't seem to want to let him forget he was once Torchwood's prisoner...
1. Trouble in the Ranks

"I really don't like her."

Jack paused in the middle of the report he was writing – or rather, attempting to write – and spared Ianto a withering look.

"So you've said. Lots of times. In fact, I was starting to get worried. A whole half hour had gone by since you said it last."

Ianto dropped into the chair opposite Jack.

"Very funny. I know I've been a little repetitive. It's just that I really don't..."

"Like her," Jack cut in wearily. "I get it. But you're the one who kept insisting that I had to hire more people, and she's got the sort of tech skills we need!"

Ianto sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face.

"I know, I know. And I shouldn't be questioning your decisions, either."

Jack lay his pen down, abandoning the report that he was supposed to be finishing but hadn't especially wanted to write, anyway.

"I don't mind you questioning my decisions, Ianto, but I'd prefer it if you gave me a reason other than 'I don't like her'. _Why_ don't you like her?"

A single eyebrow rose in response to Jack's prompting.

"You mean, aside from the obvious?"

Jack merely waited for an answer, and Ianto sighed again. Turning in his chair, he looked out into the main body of the Hub and soon found the object of his ire. Suzie Costello, newest Torchwood employee and recruited by Jack almost right off the street. She was beautiful and brilliant, but also cold, arrogant, calculating and condescending to anyone she considered to be beneath her... which meant pretty much everyone in the Hub except for Jack and, curiously, Toshiko.

Ianto had disliked the woman from the moment he'd met her, but had kept it to himself out of respect to Jack. That, and he remembered vividly that he'd felt much the same way about Owen, only to have his opinion turned on its head a week late. It was three months on now from when Jack had recruited Suzie, and Ianto had yet to discover any redeeming features in the woman.

For the first time, Ianto had found himself in a position where he couldn't confide to Tosh. She had been thrilled that Jack had hired another female, and whilst not exactly best friends, the two women seemed to have developed a natural bond. Indeed, the only thing that had kept Ianto from taking matters into his own hands and ret-conning Suzie himself was that Suzie appeared to have a genuine respect for Toshiko, and was never cruel or demeaning towards her.

Owen was another matter. He and Suzie traded barbs like feuding siblings, and while Suzie could be extremely vicious towards the medic, Owen simply gave as good as he got. Far from being aggravated by her verbal attacks, Owen seemed to thrive on them.

And that left Ianto, on his own and having to suffer the daily torment of a woman who seemed to believe she was superior to him in every way, and treated him as such. It was like being back in bloody school.

He couldn't help by flinch as Suzie suddenly looked up from where she was working and met his stare. Hating himself for it, Ianto broke first and turned back to his lover. She'd gloat over him later on, he had no doubt.

"I can't explain it," he admitted finally. "I just don't trust her. Do you realise she thinks she's second in command?"

Jack frowned a little.

"Where did she get that idea? I never told her that."

Petty though it was, Ianto couldn't help the tiny surge of satisfaction at the annoyance in Jack's voice. It was the first time since Suzie had joined Torchwood that Jack had exhibited any sort of disapproval towards her. He clamped down on it quickly, though. He needed to be careful with what he said here. The last thing he wanted was to compromise his relationship with Jack by being seen to use it to turn Jack against Suzie or to risk undermining Jack's leadership of Torchwood, and not necessarily in that order. Despite not liking all of the decisions Jack was making, Ianto wanted it to be undisputable that he respected Jack's authority. It was essential not only to the smooth-running of Torchwood Three, but to Jack's self-confidence.

This had to stay clinical, for everyone's peace of mind.

"Probably from the fact that I've not been going out on fieldwork since she started. She seems to think that all I'm good for is archives, making coffee and bringing her whatever she needs. Actually, she doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of men in general, but she at least affords you and Owen some respect. I don't think I even register on her radar most of the time."

Jack sighed loudly in frustration. In his hands was a large steel paperclip which he was bending thoroughly out of shape. It had become something of a stress reliever for Jack – a poor alternative to hugging the toy dog that still sat on his desk. Apparently, despite his best efforts, Ianto had not quite managed to hide his negative emotions towards Suzie.

"What do you want me to do, Ianto? Fire her? Maybe you'd prefer it if I hired that local plod that keeps hanging around on the Plass. I doubt she's got Suzie's brilliance, but I'm sure we could find something for her to do, like maybe give us a moving target for weapons training."

Ianto frowned reprovingly.

"Uncalled for, Jack. I know how you feel about authority, but you need to remember that you're in a position of authority now, too. And aside from that, they're not all bad. Remember, cariad, they're not all conspiring to lock you away again."

The last sentence was said with tender care, but it didn't save Jack from flinching like he'd been struck. Leaving his chair, Ianto strode around to Jack and pulled the immortal into his arms. Jack gave in easily, wrapping his arms around Ianto's waist and clinging to him like a child in need of comfort.

"Easy," Ianto murmured, trying to soothe the tension from Jack's shoulders and back. "Of course I'm not asking you to do to fire her, and that last bit would be more than even I could explain to the Cardiff Constabulary." A muffled giggle made Ianto smile in relief. He drew back a little and then leaned down to kiss Jack lightly. "All I'm asking is that we watch her. She _is_ brilliant like you say, but there's an awful lot of anger simmering under the surface."

"Because of what her father did to her," Jack murmured, earning himself a surprised look from his lover.

"You did read her file properly, then."

Jack adopted an affronted pout that never failed to amuse Ianto.

"Don't sound so surprised. I do occasionally read the stuff you give me."

Ianto chuckled and started to move away, only to find himself pulled down onto Jack's lap.

"Jack, please," he groused, acutely aware that the others could see what was going on. "My dignity..."

"Is still intact," Jack retorted. "Although, I am very tempted to unzip you and jerk you off right here and now."

Ianto tried to extricate himself from Jack's grip but couldn't manage it. Jack was simply too strong, not to mention Ianto secretly enjoyed being cuddled like this. Finally, he reluctantly settled for a verbal warning.

"Don't you dare, Jack. I am already wearing my spare trousers after your over-enthusiasm this morning, and I do not have another pair."

Jack smiled fondly.

"Calm down. I'm not going to ravish you. At least, not here and now. Can we just talk about your issues with Suzie rationally?"

Ianto stroked his fingertips tenderly down the sides of Jack's face, though he took deliberate care to avoid touching his neck. It was a minor idiosyncrasy stemming from Jack's time as a prisoner. The long years of having a too-tight collar around his neck had left that part of his body hyper-sensitive to touch, and not in a good way.

"It might not be the best conversation to have while I'm sitting on your lap."

"No? I'm perfectly comfortable."

Ianto groaned and let his head drop onto Jack's shoulder.

"So much for impartiality."

The teasing grim faded from Jack's face.

"C'mon, Ianto. Talk to me. What is it about her that you don't like?"

"I look at her," Ianto said quietly, "and I can't help thinking that she's planning something. I don't feel that she can be trusted. Even though she's not actually done anything to put any of us in danger, I can't help thinking that she's a bomb waiting to go off. I don't trust her, and neither do you. Not completely."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but that protest was lost as Ianto kissed him lingeringly.

"Jack," Ianto murmured against his lover's mouth, "she's been here for three months now, and you haven't told her about yourself, that you can't die."

That argument brought Jack up short, and Ianto knew he'd gotten through.

"I haven't told her, have I?" Jack murmured.

"No, you haven't. So can we agree that neither one of us trusts her completely for reasons that neither of us can explain?"

"I can go along with that," Jack conceded. "But promise me we'll at least give her a chance?"

With some effort, Ianto refrained from pointing out that Suzie had already had three months. Instead, he planted a lingering kiss on Jack's lips before answering.

"I promise that I'll try harder around her and be more patient. But if she puts any of us in danger, Jack, including you..."

Jack hugged his tightly.

"I'll retcon her myself, I promise."

Ianto smiled fondly.

"There's an improvement. Not so long ago, you would have cheerfully killed anyone who put me in danger."

"What can I say?" Jack joked. "I've mellowed with age."

Ianto snorted, then laughed. It truly warmed him that Jack had come through so much and still retained a sense of humour.

"Goose," Ianto murmured.

"Honk," Jack answered with a sweet smile. With reluctance, Ianto gently disengaged from Jack's arms and slid off his lap.

"I have to get back to work, and you have that paperwork to finish for Her Majesty."

Jack's adorable baby-faced pout very nearly undid him, and Ianto almost had to run from the office to avoid being drawn back to finish what Jack had clearly hoped to start.

* * *

He wasn't the least bit surprised when Suzie cut him off on his way back to the kitchen and though her expression appeared pleasant enough on the surface, the look in her eyes chilled him. Jack didn't see it, for whatever reason, but Ianto did.

"Flaunting it a bit, aren't you?" she asked. There was a smile on her face as she spoke, but that was as far as the pleasantries went. For his part, Ianto made no attempt to play word games with her.

"I'm not flaunting anything, Suzie. Jack and I have never been anything but open about our relationship."

"How does that work, anyway? Were you shagging him before or after he hired you?"

Ianto could feel his jaw threatening to lock.

"I hardly think that's any of your business."

"C'mon, Ianto. I'm curious! How is the great Captain Jack Harkness as a lover? Tell me what I'm missing out on! Tell me what the hell it is that he sees in you."

Ianto glanced beyond Suzie and felt his stomach roll unpleasantly. Jack had followed him out and was standing within hearing distance, looking less than impressed. As much as Ianto had wanted Jack to see beyond the facade that Suzie always put on for him, this was not how he'd wanted it to happen. This was akin to slapping Jack in the face.

"I believe the word he's looking for is innovative," Jack intoned, causing Suzie to turn around sharply.

"Jack..."

"Is there any reason in particular that you're questioning Ianto about our sex life? Because if you must know, it's very healthy, very regular and very much none of your business."

Suzie never argued, to her credit.

"Sorry. You're right."

"I think you owe Ianto an apology as well," Jack said It was neither a question nor a suggestion, and Suzie seemed to comprehend that.

"Sorry, Ianto," she apologized. Though he acknowledged the apology with a polite nod of his head, he couldn't help but be sceptical of its sincerity. He felt some small relief when a glance beyond Suzie told him that Jack was similarly sceptical.

"Come with me, Suzie," Jack said in a flat tone that gave away nothing of what he was thinking. "I've got a new piece of tech that I want you to have a look at."

He led her away, sparing Ianto an apologetic glance as they went. A sigh escaped Ianto once they were out of sight. As badly as he felt that Jack's decision to hire Suzie had not worked out, he couldn't help but be relieved to know that Suzie would soon be retconned, and by tomorrow would no longer be a problem for any of them.

* * *

_to be continued..._


	2. Of Pteranodons and Treachery

"You did _what_?" Ianto exploded.

They were standing in the kitchen of their home, and Jack had just dropped a bombshell. Rather than retcon Suzie, he'd allowed her to test the newest piece of alien tech that they'd found.

"Ianto..."

"No! No, I need to get my head around this. Not only have you let Suzie stay, even after what you saw and heard today, but you've also given her a free hand with a piece of tech that we'd already agreed should go straight into Secure Archives! What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?"

Jack huffed in annoyance.

"I don't think I needed to sack," Jack argued. "Sure, she had no right to bail you up like she did, and I spoke to her about it..."

"You spoke to her," Ianto snapped. "That's wonderful. Everything will be just fine now!"

Annoyance and frustration darkened Jack's features in reaction to Ianto's anger. Not so long ago, he knew he would have backed down and given in to the young Welshman, but times were changing and so was he. As much as he loved his Ianto, no longer was he complete subservient, either.

"She hasn't done anything to justify firing her, or retconning her. Until she does, she stays on the team."

Later on (or, more specifically, immediately afterwards), Ianto would fervently wish that he could take back his next words. He let his anger get the better of him, though, before he could take a moment to try and calm down.

"Goddamn it, Jack! What is it about Suzie that you don't want to take off your damn blinkers? Do you want to shag her? Is that it? Are you bored with me? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but then I was actually stupid enough to believe you had at least a modicum of respect for me!"

Jack looked as though he'd just been slapped. In the space of a few seconds, his expression went from confused to angry, to plain hurt. Without uttering a sound, he circled around Ianto and headed to the door. He was halfway out when he turned back to gaze forlornly at Ianto.

"I love you, Yan. Let me know when you've remembered that."

Then the door closed quietly, and he was gone.

* * *

It took Ianto a full ten minutes to calm down properly and comprehend the possible ramifications of his fight with Jack, although 'fight' was probably an inappropriate choice of word. It had been far too one-sided to be a real fight. Guilt set in quickly as Ianto reluctantly admitted to himself that Jack had been right. Suzie had done nothing to warrant being sacked and retconned, and he had no right or reason to demand it.

Jack's parting words sat heavily on Ianto's subconscious as he took his car and went in search of his lover. Of course he knew that Jack loved him and oh, how he wished he could take back the hurtful things he'd said.

Why was he so angry? When Jack hired Owen, Ianto had explained it away as melancholy that Jack was finally starting to make independent decisions. Given how long and how hard they'd worked towards that, Ianto knew he had no business being upset – either then or now. The difference was that Owen had proven himself. In Ianto's opinion, Suzie had yet to do so.

Jack was right, though. Suzie had not breached any protocols, or put anyone in danger, there was no just cause to cut her loose from Torchwood.

He tried Jack's mobile, only to get a message. He growled in frustration, and had to resist the urge to call Tosh. As much as he wanted to find Jack quickly, he knew damn well that this was his mess to fix.

"Stupid," he hissed, thumping his hand on the steering wheel in anger. He knew that Jack still harboured insecurities and to accuse him so callously was unhelpful, to say the least. The annoying and frustrating part, though, was knowing that Jack harboured suspicions – or at the very least, uncertainties – as well. He'd admitted that he didn't trust Suzie completely, but he insisted on keeping her on the team. If it was primarily so that he could keep an eye on her, then so be it, but why the hell couldn't he just come right out and say so?

So caught up in his own thoughts was he that he nearly didn't see the man standing in the path of the SUV until it was too late. Stomping hard on the brake, Ianto held onto the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip as the SUV skidded to a stop mere inches away from the Captain of Torchwood. Ianto's emotions warred between anger and concern as he climbed out, finally falling in favour of concerned.

"Jack, are you all right?" he asked anxiously. "God, cariad, I almost ran you down!"

Jack smiled, but it was a pale imitation of the real thing.

"Got your attention, didn't it?"

Ianto grabbed Jack and yanked him in close for a fierce hug, which Jack immediately returned with interest.

"I'm sorry," Ianto murmured. "You're right, there's no reason to get rid of her."

"But there are reasons to be cautious around her," Jack conceded. "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have walked out like that, and I do know that you love me. I just... I don't know what to do about this, Yan."

"We both made mistakes," Ianto offered, and Jack nodded; happy to accept even that slightly unbalanced compromise.

"I shouldn't have given the glove," Jack said.

"No," Ianto agreed, "but what's done is done. We'll just have to keep a close eye on her. On the other hand, at least we'll find out what the blasted thing does."

"I still think it's a fancy oven mitt," Jack retorted. Ianto answered with a familiar eye-roll.

"For someone who professes to hate household chores, you have a curious fixation on kitchenware." The cheeky grin that lit up Jack's face was enough to lift Ianto's mood, and he grinned back. "How about we go and get take-away, and head home and watch a movie?"

"Something funny?" Jack asked hopefully and Ianto readily agreed. After the tension of not just that evening but the last few days, Ianto was more than ready to have something to laugh at, and to hear Jack's carefree laughter again as well.

"I think that's quite doable."

"Great! Can we get Indian? With extra poppadums?"

"If you like," Ianto conceded with a relieved grin.

"Yes, please. Wait!"

Ianto froze in the middle of putting the SUV into gear.

"What?" he asked, tensing automatically at the thought that something else was wrong.

"I nearly forgot," Jack exclaimed with an excitement that had Ianto more than a little worried. "I got a rift alert on my manipulator after I... I mean, while I was out. I tracked it to a warehouse, and you won't believe what I found!"

* * *

Ianto couldn't help but gape as he stared up at the pteranodon as it circled around above their heads. Jack had been right – he didn't believe his eyes.

The short journey to the warehouse had been filled with mixed tensions as Ianto tried to get Jack to tell him what he'd found. Strangely, when Jack had made an off-the-cuff about finding a guard dog, for some idiotic reason Ianto had actually thought he meant he'd found a dog. He'd just been contemplating having to clean up after some mutt that sorely needed house-training when Jack had flung open the warehouse door with relish for the big reveal.

"It's a dinosaur, Jack."

Jack grinned widely.

"I know. Isn't she beautiful?"

Ianto decided he wasn't going to ask how Jack knew it was a female. He didn't feel particularly in the mood to delve into the mysteries of dinosaur sex.

"It's a bloody dinosaur."

"Yeah, I think we established that."

Ianto looked sideways at Jack.

"Okay, let's deal with this one step at a time. What, exactly, do you want us to do?"

"Catch her," Jack said, sounding very much as though he thought it was the most logical thing in the world.

"Of course," Ianto muttered. "What else?"

"Ianto," Jack said in a softer and mildly less enthusiastic tone, "whatever we do later on, we still have to catch her. Can you imagine the panic if she's seen?"

Ianto snorted, though he had to concede to Jack's reasoning.

"It'd go in the same police file as all the UFO reports. And then we'd have to catch her anyway."

"Exactly. At least here and now we might be able to avoid killing her. And who knows? Maybe she can be trained."

Ianto could feel his eyebrows lifting entirely of their own accord, and for a split second he had a flashback to Jack sitting on the couch in Jackie Tyler's apartment, innocently asking if he could have a dog. Though he would never said so to Jack, he was sure there was some level of self-compensation going on there.

"A guard dog?" Ianto queried in weary amusement, and Jack grinned hopefully.

"I promise I won't call her Sam."

That broke the last of Ianto's resistance, and he sighed audibly.

"All right," he conceded wearily. "There's a space up near the top of the water tower that might make do as a nest area... but so help me, Jack, you had better do your share of the cleaning up! I will not be solely responsible for a dinosaur that's likely to crap everywhere."

"We can train her," Jack protested, to which Ianto replied with a piercing look.

"Jack, do you realise how small that thing's brain is? And you honestly think we can train her?"

"It's a misconception that dinosaurs aren't intelligent," Jack said dismissively.

"Right. The fact that they're extinct has nothing at all to do with their intelligence."

Jack rolled his eyes then in a gesture eerily reminiscent of his young lover.

"Look, I promise I'll help clean up after her. Now, can we please focus on catching the nice dinosaur before she decides we're her dinner?"

That, Ianto decided, was probably a reasonable idea. Jack edged forward, his attention now almost entirely on the prehistoric creature that had landed a short distance away and was watching them carefully.

"Oh, you are _beautiful_," Jack breathed, at the same time edging steadily towards to the winged creature. "But you can't stay here. Come with us, we've got a nice, big open space where you can fly around."

"As long as you don't even think about setting her onto that PC," Ianto muttered, to which Jack responded with a brief smirk.

"Just remember, you gave me the idea."

"Me and my big mouth," Ianto bemoaned. "Jack, what's the plan?"

Jack held up the enormous syringe that he'd collected from the back of the SUV.

"Take this. I'll distract, and you slip up from behind and sedate her."

"How are you going to distract a pteranodon?" Ianto demanded to know, grabbing Jack's arm to stop him. "It had better not include feeding yourself to it, or anything else like that."

Jack's expression softened. It never failed to touch him that Ianto was still so protective of him. It was a mutual feeling.

"I promise, there will be no intentional self-sacrificing," Jack assured him. Ianto grimaced. He could see where this was going, regardless of Jack's best intentions.

"Right, change of plan. _I'll_ distract, _you_ inject. If I let you distract her, she'll tear you to pieces."

"Nah," Jack scoffed, though he didn't object when Ianto thrust the syringe into his hands. "I used to have dinosaurs for breakfast. They were the only source of pre-killed food protein after the asteroid hit."

Ianto's eyebrows shot up again.

"Time Agency mishap?"

"Yeah. Half a dozen of us were stranded on prehistoric Earth for nearly a month. It wasn't pretty."

A smile quirked Ianto's lips but he resisted the urge to ask more questions.

"You can tell me about it later. Just be ready to use that thing."

"But what are you going to do?" Jack pressed, a hint of anxiety creeping into his voice.

"Don't worry, I have a secret weapon," Ianto told him, and pulled a large block of chocolate from his jacket pocket. "Chocolate, preferably dark."

"Hey, that was gonna be our dessert!" Jack protested. "I got the fondue set out specially, and I never ate the marshmallows, either!"

"Relax, cariad," Ianto murmured as he edged around to the other side, drawing the pteranodon's attention as he did so. "There's more chocolate at home. I would never dream of making you go without."

Jack's grin was positively evil and Ianto had to actively ignore it. He unwrapped the chocolate and the crinkle of the foil drew the dinosaur's attention further.

"Hey," Ianto said, feeling like an utter fool. "Look at what I've got for you." He tossed the entire block down, letting the creature's curiosity take over. "It's good for your serotonin levels. If you've got serotonin levels..."

All the while, Jack was creeping ever closer, syringe at the ready. He was just about within reach when the featherless bird turned and pinned him with a beady-eyed stare. The next thing Ianto knew, Jack lunged just as the pteranodon launched itself back into the air. He was left on the floor, watching helplessly as Jack was carried all around the warehouse, laughing with delight and shouting Ianto's name in absolute glee.

Right at that moment, Jack sounded just like he had in that time between his rescue from Torchwood, and when he'd finally recovered all his faculties. He sounded completely innocent and carefree, and the sound of his laughter brought a smile to Ianto's lips.

He was so caught up with his memories that he almost missed the moment when Jack shoved the syringe into the pteranodon's leg. As it was, he barely had time to brace himself before Jack plummeted straight down into Ianto's waiting arms, effectively flattening the younger man and squashing the air right out of him.

"Sorry," Jack gasped in between giggles. The giggles turned into a grunt, though, when Ianto forced them both to roll to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the pteranodon as it fell.

"That was close," Jack said, starting to giggle again. Ianto couldn't help himself. Jack's laughter was contagious in the best possible way, and he began to laugh as well.

Eyes alight with enthusiasm, Jack lunged upwards and claimed Ianto's lips in a ferocious kiss, which Ianto returned with equal enthusiasm.

"Do we forgive each other?" Jack asked softly, hopefully. Ianto stroked his cheek lovingly.

"Absolutely. But unfortunately, our dinner date at home is going to have to wait. We have to get our new guest back to the Hub and get her settled before we wakes up. Then we're going to have to stay with her so that she gets used to us. It'll be up to us to make sure she doesn't try to eat Tosh, Owen or Suzie."

Jack opened his mouth to say something, and Ianto cut him off quickly.

"Not even nosy PCs. We're also going to have to work out a way to keep her from eating everything she sees. We don't need her chewing on the rift manipulator cables."

"Right," Jack agreed, though he seemed not the least bit inclined to let Ianto up. Smiling wryly, Ianto levered himself up and held a hand out to help Jack up.

"C'mon, sweetheart. Work to do."

Jack's smile faltered fractionally as he joined Ianto in manoeuvring the dinosaur back to the SUV.

"I still miss Gage."

Ianto shut his eyes just briefly, willing away the old hurt. He'd known the moment the word 'sweetheart' left his lips that it would invoke memories of their old friend, but it was too late to take it back.

"So do I, love. Maybe we'll see him again. I hope we will."

"Me, too," Jack murmured. He fell silent as they tied a blindfold lightly over the pteranodon's eyes, and followed it with a tie to keep its long beak closed.

"Back to the Hub, now," Ianto said with a sigh of relief. "And remember, no training the dinosaur to eat people. Not even as an emergency measure."

Jack pouted, but Ianto didn't miss the renewed sparkle in his eyes. Yes, they both missed Gage, but the hurt was somewhat lessened from what it had once been. Ianto knew that Jack no longer blamed himself for Gage's departure, and the loss of that sense of blame had helped Jack in his journey to full maturity. Now, both men shared a quiet hope that they would be reunited with their friend at some point in the near future, but right then Ianto was content that they could at least talk about Gage without it turning into a complete conversation stopper.

Tosh knew most of what there was to tell about Gage Adams' involvement in their lives pre and post-Canary Wharf's destruction, and Owen had heard some stories but again, Suzie had been told nothing about Gage. Suzie had been told nothing about Jack's history at all. The most she knew was that they were survivors of the Canary Wharf disaster, and that was all. Not that that information had served to improve her opinion of Ianto in any way...

"You're thinking too hard," Jack said lightly, his voice breaking into Ianto's stray thoughts. Ianto offered Jack a weary smile, but on looking out of the side window was startled to realise that they were almost back at the Hub. Jack had driven and allowed him to retreat into his own thoughts for the duration of the drive.

"Just musing," Ianto assured him. "Let's get our new pet inside before someone notices."

* * *

The eerie quiet that blanketed the Hub served as a stark reminder to both Jack and Ianto why they had a home of their own, away from the underground base. To put it simply, it was plain creepy. With no small amount of difficulty, they managed to get the pteranodon up into the cave-like formation within the Hub, and not a minute too soon as the creature began to wake up.

"Any ideas how we're going to keep her calm and keep her from eating us?" Ianto wondered. Jack quirked a smile at his lover.

"_Her_? You've decided to go along with me that she's a girl?"

"Until we have proof otherwise?" Ianto retorted. "Might as well. It's not as though I can easily check, is it? But I swear, Jack, if you think we're calling her Magenta or anything along those lines, you've got another thing coming."

"You name her," Jack encouraged. He glanced down as the pteranodon uttered a half-hearted warbling noise and tried to move. "I named Brad. You name her."

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and instead contemplated the creature lying between them. It wouldn't be long before she was fully conscious and then it would be interesting, to say the least.

"I don't know, Jack..."

"Something good and Welsh," Jack suggested quickly, eagerly. Ianto snorted softly.

"I'll think on it, and let you know in the morning."

"There's a diplomatic answer, if ever there was one," Jack said with a chuckle. "Oh, she's waking up..."

Deciding it was all in, Ianto leaned in and laid one arm across the pteranodon's neck whilst rubbing his hand up and down the creature's beak in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. Jack copied, leaning in close and stroking the pteranodon up and down her back.

"Easy, girl," Ianto murmured as the dinosaur began to struggle against her restraints.

"Have you got anymore chocolate on you?" Jack wondered. Ianto's first instinct was to ask why, but instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out the still half-wrapped block that he'd retrieved from the floor of the warehouse. He broke it into pieces and handed some to Jack before carefully loosening the binding around the creature's beak.

"Now, if you're nice and gentle and don't take my hand off, you can have more of this," Ianto murmured as he slipped a piece of chocolate into her beak. The increasingly distressed cries subsided to be replaced with a less threatening warble.

"Hey, I think she likes it," Jack said with a grin. Ianto raised an eyebrow.

"Of course she likes it. It's Godiva."

Jack shook his head even as he took a turn to feed a piece to the pteranodon.

"We're feeding our best dessert chocolate to a prehistoric bird. On the bright side, we have a new slogan for the people who make the stuff. Godiva, chocolate that'll soothe the wildest beast."

Ianto snorted and uttered a choked laugh, but anything he'd intended to say was cut short by the sound of the Hub's cog door rolling open, and the alarms ringing to alert them to the fact that someone had entered the Hub.

"Easy, girl," Jack murmured, stroking the pteranodon's neck soothingly as Ianto got up and crept to the edge of the new eyrie to see who had bothered to come in so late.

"It's Suzie," Ianto hissed back over his shoulder at Jack. "What the hell is she doing here now?"

Leaving the dinosaur to continue devouring the chocolate, Jack joined Ianto at the edge and peered down into the Hub. Sure enough, Suzie had entered the Hub with a large bag slung over her shoulder. She paused just inside the cog door, looking around pensively before hurrying across the floor and disappearing through the door that led to the archives.

"What's she up to?" Jack wondered with a frown. Ianto shook his head, quietly fuming at the thought of Suzie rummaging around in his archives. If he found so much as a single file out of place, he was going to retcon Suzie back to her nappies and damn what Jack thought of it.

They watched in silence, and nearly ten minutes later, Suzie reappeared, her bag noticeably heavier than before. She paused at her desk, and Jack and Ianto watched breathlessly as she picked up the metallic glove that Jack had given her to research. For nearly half a minute, she stood with the glove clutched in her hands before shoving it quickly into her bag and rushing out of the Hub.

Jack and Ianto moved back from the edge of the eyrie, and Ianto shot a flat stare in Jack's direction.

"I can't wait to hear how you're going to defend her this time."

To his credit, Jack looked genuinely angry at what they'd just witnessed.

"She took tech out of the Hub. Tech that we don't even know what it does!"

"Not to mention whatever it was that she took out of the archives," Ianto added. "Jack, it's your call, but surely you're not going to turn a blind eye to this?"

"No," Jack conceded with a sigh. "No, I'm not. But... I want to know what she's up to before I confront her. Ianto, do you think you can find out what it was that she took from the archives?"

"I'll try, but it won't be easy, depending on how careful she was with whatever she took. One thing about Suzie, she's meticulously careful. She won't have left behind any obvious evidence."

"Well, try anyway," Jack encouraged him. "I'll set up a watch on Suzie..."

"How?" Ianto wondered with a frown. "I don't know that it would be too wise to involve Tosh or Owen."

"No, I don't want to drag them into it," Jack murmured. "I just want this between us for now, and I don't want to jump the gun, either. I want to know what she's doing before we make a final decision."

Ianto shut his eyes briefly and made a concerted effort to speak calmly.

"Jack, we're going to have to retcon her. You know that. She's becoming a liability. Even you can see that now."

"I know, I know... but there are more options than just retconning her. There's always Flat Holm."

Ianto gazed at Jack thoughtfully, noting the anxiety in his lover's eyes before smiling and nodding.

"All right, cariad. Now, let's focus on Myfanwy for now, and worry about Suzie Costello tomorrow."

A bright grin lit up Jack's face.

"Myfanwy?"

The younger man shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

"It seems to fit."

Jack grinned as he settled down next to the pteranodon and urged her to take another piece of chocolate, which she did with a throaty warble.

"Yeah, it does."

* * *

_to be continued..._


	3. Ominous Tidings

For a little while, despite best intentions, both Jack and Ianto's attentions were diverted away from Suzie and her clandestine activities by the needs of their new resident. To Ianto's bemusement, Jack was soon proven right about Myfanwy's intelligence as they found that she was far easier to train than they'd both hoped. She also seemed to choose favourites amongst the human residents of the Hub. He and Jack were treated with increasing affection – most likely, Ianto guessed, because they were the ones feeding her and spending time with her.

Because of their focus on Myfanwy, it took Ianto nearly a week to work out what it was that Suzie had removed from the Archives. It was a discovery that left both him and Jack deeply troubled.

"The knife that we found a couple of weeks before we found the glove?" Jack asked in surprise as he and Ianto cleaned out Myfanwy's lair. It had quickly become the only safe place where they could discuss sensitive matters without fear of being overheard because it was the only part of the Hub now not monitored by CCTV. It wasn't for lack of trying. Ianto had installed a camera, only for Myfanwy to try and eat it.

"That's the one," Ianto confirmed. "That's what she took."

"Do you think the knife and glove could be connected?"

"Without knowing what the glove does, it's impossible to tell," Ianto said. "It doesn't help that Suzie is sneaking both artefacts out of the Hub each night, and she won't let anyone else near the glove during the day."

"Not even me," Jack confirmed. "I think it's time Suzie updated us on her progress with that thing. The sooner I can get it off her and put it into secure storage, the better."

Ianto paused in his efforts to observe his partner. He knew Jack regretted giving the glove to Suzie, but they'd agreed that what was done was done, and there was no point dwelling on it. Jack had a tendency to mope, though if Ianto wasn't quick to snap him out of it.

"Team meeting this afternoon, then?" he suggested. "We can make a bit of a show out of everyone giving updates on their work, and then it won't look like we're singling out Suzie."

"Perfect," Jack agreed. He hesitated and Ianto grinned knowingly.

"I'll go out and get a fresh batch of Krispy Kremes."

"Mixed?"

"Of course. And don't worry, I'll make sure you get a Choc Iced Kreme."

Owen had snagged that particular delicacy when Ianto last brought in a batch of the confectionaries, and it had resulted in a sulk of epic proportions on Jack's part. What had really bemused Ianto, though, was not knowing for sure whether the childish behaviour was a by-product of his earlier childlike mentality. Ianto suspected that Jack might always have had the propensity to sulk – it was just enhanced by his experiences.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by the pleasurable sensation of Jack's lips on his.

"Love you," Jack murmured softly and sincerely, and Ianto gladly responded in kind.

* * *

Ianto tried to tell himself that Suzie wasn't giving him dirty looks as the team filed into the boardroom, but he knew he was kidding himself. She'd been giving him similar looks for the last three days, and he fairly sure he knew why. Suzie knew he was aware that she'd taken something from the Archives, but Ianto was equally sure that she didn't know if he knew _what_ she had taken. Or, if he had told Jack. At least, he figured she was assuming he hadn't, given the regular death stares he was getting.

It was starting to make him uneasy, especially knowing how she felt about men in general. It had occurred to him, more than once, that Suzie might just try to hurt him physically, if not actually kill him. More to the point, Ianto wondered whether the same concern had also occurred to Jack, at least subconsciously. In the last week or so, Jack had not once allowed Ianto to be left alone with Suzie, either in or out of the Hub.

"All right, update time," Jack announced, slapping his hands together enthusiastically. "You all have a special project on the go. I want to know where you're at with them. Owen? How's the weevil study going?"

The next fifteen minutes were taken up with Owen's enthusiastic recounting of everything he'd learnt in his observations of their resident weevil.

"I reckon I could learn a lot more if we could bring in a live female," he said. "We could see how weevils interact first-hand."

A leering grin lit up Jack's face.

"Are you trying to say that you're curious about weevil sex?"

Owen blanched, Tosh and Suzie both groaned and Ianto merely rolled his eyes. Owen had walked right into that one, and they all knew it.

"Not in the way you're thinking, Harkness," Owen retorted. "Honestly, Jack, you're a sick bastard sometimes."

Jack merely smirked, and Ianto took the opportunity to speak and gently redirect the conversation.

"We'll see what we can do about getting a cell mate for Brad, but given that the females are considerably more aggressive than the males, don't hold your breath."

Owen conceded, if somewhat reluctantly.

"Fine. Just keep it in mind. I could learn a lot more if I have a female weevil to study."

"Is that it?" Jack asked, and got a brusque nod in return from the medic. "Okay, then. Suzie? How goes it with the glove Any progress on figuring it out?"

Ianto had to hand it to Jack – he'd done that seamlessly. More to the point, in dealing with Suzie second, it didn't look like she was the main focus. All the same, Ianto fully expected her to baulk, and was quietly astonished when she did the exact opposite.

With an eager expression, she pushed a saucer towards the centre of the table, and uncovered it to reveal a dead spider.

"That's disgusting," Tosh said, wrinkling her nose. Ianto frowned.

"Not to mention you've used a saucer from my kitchen."

Suzie ignored them both. She lifted the glove and put it on, and then touched one fingertip to the dead arachnid.

"Suzie..." Jack started to speak, only to have her cut him off.

"Quiet. Just watch. You'll see."

The excitement in her voice was audible to all, and a sense of anticipation filled the room.

Toshiko uttered a half-stifled scream and Owen swore loudly as the spider suddenly reanimated and its legs began waving madly in the air as it tried to right itself. Neither Jack nor Ianto said a word, but the looks they exchanged spoke volumes.

"Bloody hell, woman," Owen sputtered. "Are you telling us that glove brings things back to life?"

"Well, so far I've only been able to test it on animals," Suzie conceded, "and it only lasts a minute or so..."

As she spoke, the glove gave off the faintest of buzzes, and the newly resurrected spider died for a second time. Suzie slipped off the glove and laid it on the desk.

"I haven't been able to test it on people yet, but imagine! If it could bring people back to life, and give them a second chance! No one would need to be afraid of dying!"

"It's not exactly natural, though, is it?" Tosh said uncomfortably. Owen, however, had recovered from his shock and was eyeing the glove with a studied interest.

"I don't know about bringing people back permanently, but I can see an advantage or two."

"Such as?" Ianto prompted. He couldn't help but feel a tiny hint of curiosity. Most of the alien tech they found was fairly standard by comparison, and as much as he knew the glove needed to be locked away where no one could use it, he was still curious as to how his colleagues might put it to use. At the same time, though, given what Owen knew of Jack's immortality, it beggared belief that the medic could agree with Suzie on this. Jack's silence, too, was telling, and right at that moment Ianto wished that the glove had turned out to be a fancy, futuristic oven mitt. Anything would have been better than this.

"Well," Owen said with growing eagerness, "say we find a body. We know something alien killed it, but evidence is pretty sketchy. With that glove, we could find out who, what, how... It'd be a huge time saver, Jack."

"No."

Ianto was not at all surprised by Jack's reaction, and even less surprised by Suzie's.

"Jack, we can't just lock it away," Suzie protested. "Not now that we know what it does! Just think of the possibilities!"

Jack's expression was stony.

"I am. The answer is still no."

He offered no explanation and, to her credit, Suzie never demanded one. Instead, she spoke in a calm and reasonable voice that compelled them all to listen.

"Jack, at least think about this. I don't believe it's dangerous, but I understand your concerns about misuse. I'd like to suggest a compromise. Give me two weeks to test it on humans, and analyse the results. If you're still not convinced at the end of two weeks that we can use it safely, then we'll shut it down and the glove can go into secure storage, permanently. But at least give me a chance, Jack, please."

Jack looked sideways at Ianto, not even trying to hide the fact that he was looking to his second for advice. Ianto appreciated it – it was as good as an open statement to the whole team that he was more than just a simple tea boy. Despite the tacit acknowledgement, though, Ianto swallowed an urge to outright state his opposition to allowing any further testing of the glove. He and Jack had talked about it in depth, and they had agreed the situation called for a careful touch. Also, Ianto conceded silently that simply shutting down the glove project would not help them towards their ultimate goal of working out what Suzie had been up to for the last couple of weeks.

"She does have a point," Ianto admitted reluctantly. Jack frowned a little.

"Not disputing that, but I'm not going to change my mind."

"Then it won't hurt if you give me a couple more weeks," Suzie argued. "C'mon, Jack, please! Give me a chance?"

Jack looked across at Ianto, not even trying to hide the fact that he was looking to his second for advice. Ianto appreciated it – it was as good as an open statement to the whole team that Ianto was more than just a tea boy.

"She has a point," Ianto conceded with extreme reluctance.

"I'm not arguing about that," Jack said. "I just don't think it's something we should be pursuing."

"This isn't Torchwood One, Jack," Suzie point out. Whether she noticed the flinch that went through Jack at the mention of his former prison, none of them were sure. If she did, Jack never gave her the chance the chance to question it.

"If I give you two weeks," he said finally, "will you abide by my decision at the end of it? No matter what it is?"

"Absolutely," Suzie promised. "Jack, I'd like permission to take the glove out of the Hub."

Jack's expression darkened.

"I haven't okayed the research yet. Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren't you?"

"Let's just say I have a good feeling about it. My point is, if I'm going to test the glove, the best way would be to try it on recently killed people. You know... murder victims, and the like."

"Predicting a murder spree, Suzie?" Jack queried humourlessly.

"This is Cardiff, Jack," Suzie retorted. "We're at the epicentre of the rift. I defy you to pick a day when someone hasn't been killed. Anyway, it doesn't have to be _only_ murder victims. Any recently deceased body will do. It's just that violent deaths seem to make for stronger resurrections."

"You haven't been torturing innocent bugs to death, have you?" Owen asked with an amused laugh. "You sick woman."

Suzie ignored him, her focus entirely on Jack.

"Well?" she pressed.

"The glove only leaves the Hub for testing, and only with the whole team present," Jack said sternly, ignoring the sudden glee in Suzie's eyes.

"Agreed."

It was a promise made to be broken, and both Jack and Ianto knew it. With reluctance, Jack conceded.

"You have two weeks, but don't bet on my changing my mind."

The grin on Suzie's face was not at all comforting.

"Of course," Owen pointed out blithely, "that now you've gotten His Royal Harkness to agree, there won't be a dead body to be had anywhere."

Again, Suzie's grin was not remotely comforting.

"I'm sure something will come up," she said with a disturbing confidence. "I'll monitor the police radio bands and listen out for homicides."

"All right," Jack cut in with a touch of impatience. "Moving on. Tosh? How's your translation program coming along?"

* * *

"Am I doing the right thing?" Jack wondered as he and Ianto observed the Hun's inner activities from the boardroom.

"I don't know," Ianto murmured. "But you're not in this alone, Jack. Whatever happens, we chose this path together. Whatever happens with Suzie now is as much on my shoulders as it is on yours."

Jack sighed faintly.

"Do you think we should call the Doctor?"

"Maybe," Ianto said, "but at the same time we can always be running to him for help whenever a problem crops up. Similarly, he won't always be able to help. We have to learn to stand alone some time, right?"

"And if we screw up?"

Ianto slipped his hand into Jack's and squeezed gently.

"We're only human, Jack. We're bound to screw up. When we do, we just pick up the pieces and start over."

Jack sighed again and turned into Ianto's embrace.

"What am I worried about? Owen's probably right. There probably won't be any dead bodies for the next two weeks."

Ianto said nothing, but quietly hoped Jack was right.

* * *

Three days later the alert came through that a body had been found - stabbed in the back.

* * *

The SUV roared to a halt in the alley, beyond the police exclusion zone. Rain pelted against the windows, making all bar one of the vehicle's occupants wish they were elsewhere.

"This is bollocks," Owen groused, and Jack had to silently agree. He wanted nothing more than to be home with Ianto, snuggling together in their nice, warm bed. However, he'd accepted Suzie's proposal for a two week trial, and as a consequence he had no choice. So here they were, out in a dingy alley at night, about to get saturated.

"Well, come on!" Suzie enthused. "The longer we wait, the harder this will be."

Sighing, Jack threw open the car door and got out. He quickly buttoned up his coat – something he rarely did because he hated the fell of anything close around his throat. It was too strong of a reminder of his days as a prisoner, and the cruel collar that he'd had to wear for so long. He hoped fervently that this wouldn't take long. It wouldn't be long before he was itching to open out his collar, but at the same time he didn't especially want rain running down his neck.

As his team set up around the dead body, Jack tilted his face upwards, squinting at the glare from the flood lights the police had set up. He was getting anxious, and felt more than a little sour that Ianto had stayed behind at the Hub. Granted, it hadn't been his choice – he had started exhibiting flu-like symptoms and was on orders from Owen to stay dry and warm. Ergo, no going out at night in the pouring rain.

Oh, how Jack missed his soothing presence, even just for this short time.

Gradually the nerves took hold, and Jack fell back on what he did best to dispel them. He talked.

"There you go! I can taste it. Oestrogen. Definitely oestrogen. You take the pill, flush it away, it enters the water cycle. Feminizes the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky and then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. Love this planet. Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing _that_ again."

He ceased his rambling to find Tosh and Owen both looking at him incredulously. Suzie was fully focused on the glove and gave no indication that she'd heard anything he'd said.

"You'd better hope Ianto isn't listening in," Owen said dryly, "or you're going to be in for a very interesting discussion when you get home. Anyway, if you're done rambling, you might want to have a bit of a look back that way. It's that bloody PC again."

Jack felt his jaw tighten even before he glanced back down the alley and spotted the individual in question.

"Great," he muttered. "That's all we need. Does that woman _ever _give up?"

"Relax, Jack," Tosh said. "She's probably here because she would have been on duty in the general vicinity when the body was found."

Jack responded with a grunt.

"Doesn't help that she's going to see what we're doing."

"From all the way back there? Come on, Jack. Let's just do this and get out of here before we all drown."

Jack turned his attention back to the task at hand.

"D'you think you could hurry it up?" Owen asked Suzie snidely. "I'm freezing my arse off here."

Suzie frowned as she positioned her now gloved hand under the dead man's head.

"It's not like there's a switch to just turn it on. You have to sort of... feel it."

"Well, hurry up and feel it," Owen snapped. Suzie opened her mouth to reply, only to gasp as the dead man jolted back to life.

In the midst of his team's activity, Jack caught the sound of a distinct gasp of shock coming from almost directly overhead. He shut his eyes for a moment – _please, no_ – and glanced back down the alley. His fears were confirmed. The PC was nowhere in sight.

A few fumbled questions and a couple of minutes later, their latest Lazarus project was once again lying dead in the rain.

"Well, that was a bloody waste of time," Owen grumbled. "How many times have we tried it now, and we still can't get our act together!"

"Maybe there's no right or wrong way of doing it," Jack mused as he rose from where he'd been crouching by the body. He tilted his head up and immediately found the wide-eyed stare of their nuisance PC staring down at them from the first level of the car park. "What do _you_ think?"

To say he didn't take great satisfaction in the look of panic and fear on the woman's face before she vanished would have been a blatant lie. He hoped that maybe he'd given her enough of a fright to stop her persistent stalking, but he doubted it. His best hope right then was that she would doubt her own senses, and assume she'd misunderstood everything she'd witnessed.

"Jack, we're ready to go," Tosh said, interrupting his thoughts. He answered with a nod and followed her to the SUV, unsavoury thoughts of how he could dispose of a stubborn PC lingering temptingly in his mind.

* * *

"She was there?" Ianto asked in surprise as Jack relayed the night's events to his young lover.

"Large as life," Jack grumbled. He'd headed straight home after seeing his team safely to their respective domiciles and taking the glove back to the Hub. Suzie hadn't been happy with that, but she'd not argued. Ianto, it turned out, had not listened in on their activity, but instead had kept their bed warm for Jack's return.

"She was probably assigned to be there because she was on duty in the area," Ianto assured him.

"Tosh said that, too," Jack admitted. "I guess it's true, but she still got nosy. She went into the high rise car park next to the alley and watched us."

That revelation made Ianto tense.

"Really."

"Yeah. I don't know how much she actually saw, or if she heard anything, but it would have been enough to feed whatever curiosity she already has. Although, I think I did give her a fright by letting her know she'd been spotted. She bolted like a frightened rabbit."

A soft laugh escaped Ianto's lips. He could just picture that.

"We'll take that one step at a time. I don't think we should look at retconning her unless we have no other choice."

"I hate using that stuff," Jack confessed as he settled in against Ianto, with his head nestled against the Welshman's shoulder. "I know what it's like to have memories stolen. I hate doing it to other people."

"I know," Ianto agreed. "That's why we use it sparingly, although I noticed a few days ago that we seem to be missing some stock."

Jack lifted his head to peer at Ianto in concern.

"We're missing retcon? How much?"

"Approximately sixty tablets. I might never have noticed at all, except that having the blasted flu has left me bored out of my mind, and I decided to take an inventory. They weren't all taken at once. I would have noticed that straight away. They've been taken over a period of time, just a few here and there."

"Few enough at a time to make it seem like a possible miscount," Jack mused, and Ianto nodded.

"Yes, and taken irregularly enough to keep it under the radar."

Jack was silent, considering Ianto's words for a long while before speaking with more than a hint of weariness.

"Suzie?"

"I think so, but I don't have any proof, so I can't just accuse her of taking it."

Again, silence reigned for the next few minutes before Jack spoke again.

"There's something else that I'm scared she might be doing," he admitted unhappily. "Something even worse than taking retcon, but I can't prove it yet, either."

"What?" Ianto asked, suddenly feeling his stomach clenching unpleasantly.

"I'm afraid that she might be the one who's been killing all these people."

Ianto tightened his hold on Jack. There was nothing he could say in reply to that. Nothing at all.

* * *

_to be continued_...


	4. Encounters & Visitations

Ianto was seriously contemplating suggesting to Jack that they deal with Suzie sooner rather than later, when the weevil alert at the hospital came through. He insisted on going with them, though Owen would only sign off on him driving the SUV. So it was that he was sitting and waiting for his colleagues when he spotted a familiar face being escorted into Emergency.

"Shit," Ianto hissed, and quickly flicked on his comm.

"Jack, can you hear me? Our favourite PC is on site."

The very colourful curse that followed assured Ianto that Jack had heard.

"_Where is she?_"

"Just gone into Emergency. Probably for treatment, judging by the way her partner was supporting her."

"_Everyone got that?_" Jack demanded. "_Steer clear of Emergency. Tosh, Owen, cover the west wing. Suzie, you've got the east side. I'll be with you in a couple of minutes._"

The comms clicked off and Ianto sat back with a sigh. He felt absolutely bloody useless, being confined to the SUV like this, and was sorely tempted to disregard Owen's directive. Any thoughts of insubordination, though, were erased from his mind by a sudden fit of sneezing that was rapidly followed by an unpleasant wave of vertigo.

Groaning softly, Ianto slumped down in his seat.

"Sorry, Jack," he muttered ruefully. "You're on your own with this one."

* * *

Jack knew he was being followed up the stairs, and quietly cursed his own carelessness. He'd directed his team to avoid Emergency, only to go right past there himself. Of course she'd spotted him and given chase, much to his aggravation.

He reached the floor that had been cordoned off under the excuse of a fictitious gas leak and barrelled through the doors in a desperate effort to get out of sight before she found her way up there. He could only hope that the official seal they'd put up would be enough to deter her. Somehow, he had a suspicion that it wouldn't.

"Any sign of it yet?" Jack asked over the comms. He loathed having to refer to a sentient creature as 'it', but there was no time to quibble over gender.

"_The main corridor, Jack,_" came Owen's voice. "_It just wandered into the main corridor_."

Cursing under his breath, Jack backtracked, only to be brought up short by a familiar and very unwelcome figure walking by."Damn it, everyone hold their positions! It's that PC."

"Brilliant," Suzie groused as she came to stand just behind him. "You tell us to avoid Emergency. What did you do, run naked through it?"

Jack couldn't quite stop the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth as his thoughts skidded slightly and went to his happy place. Before he could become lost in his daydreams, though, Ianto's voice sounded in his ear.

"_Jack! Focus, you have an issue to resolve._"

"_I have a solution_," Owen chimed in. "_We let the weevil eat her._"

"_Owen, that is no solution!_" Tosh protested.

"Tosh is right," Jack agreed solemnly, if just slightly regretfully. "Owen, you know we don't inflict cruel and inhumane treatment on weevils."

"_Very funny, Jack,_" Ianto growled. "_Just hurry up, before it really does eat her._"

"What's she doing?" Suzie hissed. Jack paused, listening carefully, and he could hear a distinctly female Welsh accent speaking, telling the weevil to take its mask off.

Behind him, Jack heard Suzie snigger.

"Oh my god, she thinks it's some tosser in a mask!"

Jack felt any amusement he might have had evaporate despite hearing echoing chortles from Owen, and even hearing a muffled giggle from Tosh. If the PC thought the weevil was just someone in a mask, it might make it easier to convince her she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. On the other hand, it also made the situation just that much more deadly. A person who didn't recognise danger showed no caution and, as much as he joked otherwise, Jack had no wish to see this woman killed.

"Everyone, get ready to move," he ordered. "Subdue the weevil and I'll get her out of here..."

A new voice caused Jack's heart to sink. A workman – probably a hospital porter – had entered the corridor and was talking loudly and cheerfully, utterly unaware of the danger he was walking into.

"Move, now!"

Jack barked out the order, but it came too late for the hapless porter. Even as they converged on the weevil, Jack heard the tell-tale sounds of the beast attacking. An angry snarl and a scream of pain, followed rapidly by a cry of fright, and Jack ran into the corridor to find the porter on the floor with his throat ripped out and the PC reaching for her baton with a horrified look on her face.

Briefly, Jack mentally acknowledged her refusal to collapse in a screaming heap, but at the same time he had no intention of letting her attempt to beat what was still essentially an innocent creature – even if it did have a serious advantage courtesy of tooth and claw. Lunging a little, Jack spun the woman around and literally ran her back towards the door at the far end of the corridor.

"Run!" Jack bellowed. "Go!"

He propelled her through the door, pausing only long enough to ensure she kept going. Behind him, his team had secured the weevil and Owen was sedating it. At their feet lay the body of the porter, mangled and bloody.

"Ianto, bring the SUV around to the north wing," Jack said tiredly. "We need a body bag."

There was a heartbeat's silence before Ianto replied.

"_On my way. Jack_..."

"It's not for the PC," Jack answered. "It's for a porter who followed her in here."

"_Damn._"

"Yeah."

"_All right, Jack. I'll be there in three minutes._"

* * *

It wasn't as big a mess as Jack had feared, and a concerted team effort had the area cleaned of all evidence within twenty minutes. It wasn't until they were on their way back to the Hub that Suzie pointed out what Jack especially had not wanted to hear.

"That bloody PC is following us."

Jack glanced in the side mirror and, sure enough, he could see the police car in question with the determined PC at the wheel.

"Got to give her credit for persistence," Tosh pointed out lightly. Jack was less impressed.

"Her persistence just got someone killed."

"Be fair, Jack," Ianto murmured. "Anyone could have wandered in there."

"We had it sealed off," Jack snapped. "That porter only went in because she did. If she'd minded her own damn business, he'd still be alive."

Despite inclinations to argue, Ianto held his tongue. Jack _was_ right, like it or not. PC Gwen Cooper's curiosity had sadly, albeit inadvertently, led to an innocent man's death. Worse, Ianto knew Jack was already blaming himself. All in all, it was turning into one hell of a crappy day.

* * *

Ianto dropped them off on the Plass and, as they walked towards the lift, Jack heard a female voice shouting at them.

"Jack?" Owen asked.

"Keep walking," Jack ordered. "Don't look back. She'll lose sight of us once we're on the lift."

"You hope," Suzie retorted. "Hey, we need to get our dead body into autopsy. I want to use the glove on him as soon as possible."

"No," Jack said bluntly. Suzie stared at him like she had no comprehension.

"Sorry, what?"

Jack didn't answer immediately. He finally risked looking at the PC once they were safely on the lift. Sure enough, she'd come to a halt and was looking around in utter confusion. She had no idea that they were mere metres away, almost within touching distance.

With a quiet sigh of relief, he activated the lift to start their descent into the Hub.

"Jack!" Suzie growled, rapidly growing angry. "You agreed that I could test it!"

"I said you could have two weeks. Your two weeks is up, as of yesterday, and I am not letting you test it on a man who just suffered a painful and horrific death. End of story. I want the glove on my desk by the time we all leave tonight." He stepped off the lift, and then shot Suzie a warning look. "I want the knife, too."

Far from looking shocked that Jack knew about the knife, Suzie just looked angrier than ever.

"Jack, damn it..."

"Before you leave tonight," Jack reiterated. Without waiting for a reaction, he strode away to his office, leaving Suzie fuming behind him.

* * *

"You finally threw down the gauntlet," Ianto remarked as he joined Jack. The Captain raised an eyebrow at him, and Ianto quirked a wry smile. "Pun not intended."

Jack huffed softly, and his gaze went to the monitor in front of him.

"What are you watching?" Ianto wondered and Jack motioned to the screen.

"Not what. Who."

Ianto leaned around to look and uttered a slightly strangled noise.

"She doesn't give up, does she?"

Jack's fingers twitched on the desk.

"Are you positive I can't shoot her?"

"You don't mean that," Ianto chided gently, and Jack leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

"Okay, so maybe I don't, but there's got to be some way to stop her. This really is starting to get ridiculous. Seriously, Ianto, we're being stalked!"

It was all Ianto could do not to laugh openly at Jack's indignation, and he stifled that urge by giving in to another urge to steal a kiss.

"Let's bide our time, see what she does. If it comes to it, then we'll resort to retcon."

Jack peered up at Ianto with a frown.

"Why do I get the feeling there's an 'or' in there?"

Ianto shrugged, trying and failing to look innocent.

"Or you could consider an alternative option. You could hire her."

"No!"

It was loud, emphatic and left no doubt as to Jack's opinion on the subject.

"Jack..."

"I will not have someone from the Cardiff police in the Hub!" Jack thundered.

"Jack," Ianto said in a slightly sterner tone, "she's a PC with the Cardiff Police, not a UNIT spy. She's got no idea who you are, and she isn't trying to lock you up. Now, calm down, cariad."

Jack let his breath out with a violent shudder.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "That was kind of over the top, wasn't it?"

"Just a little, but it's okay. You do need to realise, though, that not everyone is out to get you."

"I'm not that paranoid, am I?" Jack asked, feeling slightly disgruntled. Ianto kissed him again, this time more lingeringly.

"Not paranoid, love. Just a little overly cautious. It's not entirely unjustified, but there's no need to get stressed out over one relatively insignificant PC, okay?"

Jack smiled wearily, and offered no protest when Ianto turned off the monitor.

"Let her wander around out there for as long as she likes. We have some more important things to deal with."

A frown creased Jack's face.

"Suzie, you mean."

Ianto tutted softly.

"We'll see that she turns in the glove and the knife tonight, and we'll deal with her tomorrow. Right now, I had something else in mind."

He took Jack's hand and guided it to his crotch, and to his rapidly hardening cock.

"Interested?"

The grin that lit up Jack's face was nearly blinding.

"Oh, yeah..."

* * *

Night time arrived. Ianto headed upstairs to close the Hub's tourist office entrance. The one time he'd forgotten, he and Jack had come in the next morning to find a homeless man had found his way into the Hub whilst looking for shelter from the cold night. They had retconned him, and then delivered the unconscious man to a nearly hotel where they'd left him with paid-up accommodation for a month, a bag of clean new clothes and a wallet full of cash, along with a planted suggestion to see the hotel's manager the next morning about a modest job offer.

Good deed accomplished, but Ianto was careful never to leave the tourist office unsecured again.

He was almost done when his attention was caught by an image on the CCTV monitor, and his stomach dropped.

"Oh no... No, Jack is not going to like this..."

"_Jack is not going to like what?_" the Captain's voice sounded ominously in his ear. Ianto could have kicked himself for forgetting his comm. piece was still on, but it mattered little. Jack needed to know.

"It's our PC, Jack."

"_She's not **our** anything_."

"Fine. It would appear PC Cooper has been doing some investigating. She's got an armload of what looks like Jubilee pizza boxes, and she's coming this way."

The silence on the other end of the comm. line was palpable. When Jack spoke again, though, it was more with weary resignation than the anger that Ianto had expected.

"_I'm going to kill Owen._"

"What? Why?"

"_There are two things, maximum, that she could know about us._ _My name and the name Torchwood. I'll bet a tenner hat Owen has been ordering pizzas from Jubilee using the name Torchwood._"

It took some effort for Ianto not to chuckle. He could just imagine the medic doing that, now that he thought about it.

"Well, we need to decide how to deal with this," Ianto said. "She's about two minutes away. Do you want me to turn her away?"

Another long silence, and then came a most unexpected answer.

"_No, don't turn her away. Let her in_. _And close your mouth, you'll swallow a bug._"

Ianto snapped his mouth shut, not bothering to question how Jack had known he was gaping. He supposed it rather stood to reason.

"Jack, this is hardly the time for practical jokes."

"_I'm not kidding, Ianto. Let her through and then get your gorgeous ass down here. If she's really this desperate to know what we're all about, then let's give her a full show._"

"Oh lord, you're not going to scare her stupid with Brad, are you?"

"_Just do it, Ianto._"

The comms. went dead and Ianto just had enough time to remove the tech from his ear before the door opened and PC Gwen Cooper walked in.

"Hiya," she greeted him somewhat breathlessly, and Ianto resisted a powerful urge to make a comment about off career choices. Either she didn't remember him from their last meeting, or she didn't expect him to remember her. Whichever it was, he was under orders to play along with this idiotic charade.

"Evening," he answered with what he hoped was an affable smile. It honestly felt like more of a grimace, though she didn't appear to notice.

"Got pizzas here for Torchwood," she said.

Ianto promptly decided he was going to help Jack kill Owen. Fixing a bland in place, he reached under the counter and opened the hidden wall panel to reveal the passage beyond. He had to admit, it was rather amusing to watch the way the woman's eyes bulged slightly at the sight.

"Well, go on, then," he urged her. His bland smile morphed into an anticipatory one. "Don't keep him waiting."

* * *

Jack had given his team very specific instructions on what to do when the PC entered the Hub. Ianto's throw-away comment about a practical joke had given him an idea that, while harmless, would add to the woman's discomfort and hopefully discourage her from seeking out Torchwood again. Not that he intended on letting her remember anything, of course, but a little added incentive never went astray.

He heard the cog door open and made a concerted effort not to look up, even when he heard footsteps coming closer. He could smell the pizzas, and wondered briefly if she was going to try and make them pay for the food. More to the point, he wondered just how long she was going to carry on the charade of pizza delivery girl. Suddenly, Owen sniggered, then Tosh giggled, and that was that. Abruptly, Owen gave up all pretence of work and swung around in his chair.

"I can't do this. I'm sorry. I'm rubbish, I give up!"

"He set me off!" Tosh spoke defensively, though she couldn't keep a smile off her face. Suzie joined them, looking somewhere between annoyed and bemused.

"Well that lasted nought point two seconds."

And then, as one, all eyes turned on the newcomer who was looking increasingly uneasy.

"She's actually carrying pizza," Owen observed. "Well, if nothing else, we'll get a free feed out of this."

"Come on!" Jack said with a laugh and a grin that, to Tosh at least, seemed a little on the forced side. "She was gonna say 'Here's your pizza', and I was going to say 'How much?' And she says, 'Oh, whatever, twenty quid', and I say, 'Oh, but I don't have any money'... I was working on a punch line. I'd have got there, but it would have been good."

He was babbling again. He knew he was babbling, but there was comfort in the nonsense of it. From the moment he'd made the decision to allow this woman into the Hub, his anxiety levels had gone off the chart. Though he knew Ianto was right, that this was one insignificant PC who knew nothing about him, he couldn't help the raft of unpleasant memories that flooded through him – memories that had been long buried and that this 'insignificant PC' had brought to the surface with her persistence.

Right then, Jack was fighting a very real desire to simply take out his Webley and shoot her, and it was for a reason that not even Ianto knew about. He was brought back to the present with a jarring thud when she spoke.

"There's your pizza. I'd better go."

She was embarrassed, and Jack was less satisfied by that than he thought he might have been. Beyond that embarrassment, though, Jack could also see the fear in her eyes as it finally began to sink in that maybe she'd stumbled into something that was better off left alone. It was there that any sympathy Jack might have had for her ended. She was scared? Well, too bad. She should have left it alone that night in the alley. It was too late now.

"We've gone past that stage," Jack said, allowing an ominous tone to creep into his voice.

"You must have been freezing out there," Suzie said. "How long were you walking around? Three hours?"

It was a pre-planned statement. Jack had coached Suzie on what to say, and she recited it back to perfection. It had the desired effect – the Welshwoman flinched as it sank in that the stalker had, in turn, been stalked.

"You could see me?"

Suzie nodded with just a hint of a smirk.

"Mm hmm."

"And before we go any further," Jack cut in, "who the hell orders pizza under the name Torchwood?"

Just as he'd suspected, Owen sheepishly raised a hand.

"Uh, yeah, that'd be me. I'm sorry. I'm a twat."

Cooper stared around at them all, slowly recouping her lost wits.

"That man, at the hospital, that porter, what happened to him? That was real, wasn't it? He was attacked."

Jack held her gaze with a perfect poker stared, revealing none of his distress or anger over the man's unnecessary death. He had no issue with giving her the answers she wanted. After all, she was going to retconned at the earliest opportunity.

"He's dead," Jack said bluntly. Confusion practically radiated off the woman.

"But there's no one gone missing."

Toshiko answered matter-of-factly.

"We took the body, retrospectively changed the work rota, planted a false witness who saw him leaving the hospital, giving him an alibi for the next forty-eight hours, so when his body is pulled out of the docks next Tuesday night, he's only been missing three days."

Cooper stiffened.

"He was murdered?"

Toshiko nodded.

"Yes."

"And you covered it up."

There was no masking the beginning of righteous outrage in her voice, but Tosh was unaffected.

"That's my job," she answered with an unapologetic shrug. Cooper swung back around to stare at Jack.

"And that man, John Tucker? Last night in the alleyway, I saw you."

Jack abandoned his position in the doorframe of his office and approached, taking a not so small amount of satisfaction in the way she flinched.

"And what did you see?"

Cooper answered quickly – a little too quickly for her to be truly confident.

"You revived him."

"No. What did you see?"

Her gaze dropped.

"You resuscitated him."

Jack thought he hid his irritation well. It never ceased to amaze him, the way people had a propensity to completely ignore what was right in front of their noses, and instead try to explain it away with manufactured rationale. He wanted this woman to acknowledge the truth of what she'd witnessed, even if she wasn't going to be allowed to remember it.

He leaned a little closer and his voice took an edge.

"No. _What_ did you _see_?"

She met his gaze again and spoke in an admirably calm voice.

"You brought him back to life."

Jack nodded, satisfied.

"Yeah."

As though suddenly realising how close Jack was, Cooper took a stumbling step backwards.

"Who are you?"

"Torchwood," Jack answered plainly.

"What's Torchwood?"

She was confused and increasingly frightened, and damn it, he shouldn't have been enjoying it this much. He made a sweeping gesture with his hands to indicate everything and everyone around him.

"This is Torchwood. All around you."

"And what happens to me?"

Jack couldn't resist temptation in teasing her a little.

"Oo..."

"I'm the police," she stated emphatically, if perhaps a touch panicky. "Constable Gwen Cooper. You can't do anything to me."

Except, they could and Jack could see that realisation in her eyes. For all her bravado, she knew damn well that she'd walked into the middle of something very dangerous. A tiny smirk turned up the corners of Jack;s mouth. He'd promised Ianto that he wouldn't scare the woman stupid, but this was too good an opportunity to miss.

"Right, then, PC Cooper. Do you want to see?"

"See what?"

Jack could see the beginnings of real strain on her face, and tiny, spiteful and immature part of him wondered just how far he could push before he broke her. An even tinier part wondered how much make-up sex it would take to make Ianto forgive him if he did.

"You saw the murder," he said, inclining his head. "Now, come see the murderer."

He turned and strode away, assuming she would follow. There was a brief exchange as Myfanwy flew overhead, probably giving the stranger the once-over. He paused at the door that led down to the holding cells, and called back impatiently over his shoulder.

"Are you coming?"

A clatter of heels told him that she was. With a roll of his eyes that was eerily like Ianto, Jack continued on his way downstairs.

* * *

Ianto arrived downstairs to find Owen, Tosh and Suzie crowded around a monitor.

"He took her down to the cells, didn't he?" he asked with a touch of weary resignation.

"Yeah, and she hasn't run screaming," Owen remarked. Ianto glanced over their collective shoulders and was quietly pleased to note that Owen was right. He wondered idly whether he could encourage Jack to look past his prejudice against law enforcement, and consider giving this woman a chance.

His hopes faded when they eventually re-emerged and Jack began introducing the team to her. Ianto knew then that the PC would be retconned before the night was done.

"Suzie Costello, our tech and weapons specialist," Jack introduced and she smiled brightly – if not particularly warmly – at Cooper.

"I'm also second-in-command."

Ianto swallowed an urge to correct her, choosing instead to support Jack in showing a united front to the PC. He was fuming at her borderline act of mutiny, though, and so was Jack, judging by the angry glare that flashed briefly across his face.

By the time Jack dismissed them all – along with a last warning to Suzie to leave the glove on his desk – Ianto had calmed down enough to focus on the next task at hand. Heading into Jack's office, he hacked into Gwen Cooper's home computer and waited for the inevitable. It happened an hour and a half later, and he watched in amusement as Cooper typed up a stream of haphazard notes. The increasing randomness of it indicated the retcon was taking effect.

With a hint of regret, Ianto took control and erased the file beyond recovery. Despite what he thought, Jack had no intention of hiring this woman and she simply could not be allowed to remember, for her own sake if no one else's.

He left the Hub, satisfied with the night's work. It wasn't until the next morning, as he and Jack arrived back at the Hub, that he remembered Suzie had failed to hand over the glove.

* * *

_ to be continued..._


	5. Escalation

"She's not here."

Ianto looked up from the coffee machine as Jack approached, looking pale and sick.

"Suzie?"

"Yeah. She hasn't turned up, and the glove and the knife are missing, too. And that's not all. Tosh found this in amongst the police reports about the recent spate of murders."

Ianto took the print-out from Jack and felt his stomach drop. He was looking at a very good rendering of the knife that Suzie had taken from the Archives.

"This is the murder weapon?" he asked hoarsely. Jack nodded. The Captain looked very much as though he wanted to cry, and Ianto quietly admired the fortitude he showed in reining in his emotions.

"Yeah. It's her, Ianto. Suzie is the killer."

* * *

"You're positive about all this?" Owen asked when he and Tosh arrived a short while later.

"It's beyond doubt," Ianto said. "I'm sorry, Tosh."

She glared half-heartedly at him, her anger not nearly enough to mask the hurt.

"Are you, Ianto? You never liked Suzie. I suppose you'll be glad to see her gone, no matter how it affects anyone else."

Her words stung, possibly because there was a grain of truth in them. Before Ianto could gather his thoughts to defend himself, though, Jack spoke gently.

"Toshie, stop it. This isn't Ianto's fault. If anyone's to blame, it's me. I should never have given her the glove to research."

"It probably won't help," Owen said, "but I think she was a crazy bitch long before she ever got a hold of that glove."

"You're right," Jack growled. "It doesn't help."

"I'm sorry, Ianto," Tosh apologised. He offered her a warm smile in return and squeezed her hand gently.

"It's okay. I know you and she are friends, but right now our priority has to be finding her. Tosh, do you have any ideas where she might have gone to ground?"

Tosh looked helpless and more than a little embarrassed.

"Sorry, not a clue. I mean, we are... _were_ friends, but she never actually told me anything much about herself."

"I wouldn't care that she's done a runner," Owen said, "but I'm guessing she took the glove and the knife with her?"

"Yeah," Jack confirmed. "She's taken her gun with her, as well."

"Bugger," Owen muttered. "Okay, as much as I hate to add one more worry, we need to take this into consideration. That PC that you gave a guided tour to...?"

"What about her?" Jack asked, a touch irritably. "I retconned her. End of story."

Owen shook his head.

"Not necessarily. Look, we don't have time, so I'm going to spell this out. We know people can break retcon with the right trigger, and she's a cop." He pointed to the police sketch of the knife. "That thing is circulating around the Cardiff police as we speak. Suzie had that bloody knife out in plain sight last night when that PC was here and it's a fair bet that she saw it, if she's even halfway decent at her job. If she sees that sketch, and we have to assume that she will, then she could remember everything."

Acutely aware of the way that Jack had tensed, Ianto spoke in an urgent voice.

"Tosh, can we monitor her? Follow her with the CCTV?"

"Well, yes, but it'll be limited," Tosh admitted. "Why? Do you think Suzie might go after her?"

"Suzie might target her as a means of tying up loose ends," Jack guessed. "I taught her never to leave loose ends when she wrapped up a job. She learnt well."

Tosh was already on her feet, and heading to her workstation.

"I'll get onto it now."

Once she was gone, Owen looked grimly at Jack and Ianto.

"What are you going to do with Suzie when we catch up with her?"

"We're still working on that," Jack admitted. "I thought Flat Holm might be an option."

"You think you can rehabilitate her?" Owen asked incredulously. "Jack, mate, she's insane. She must be, to have done what she did."

"I brought her in," Jack said bitterly. "I owe it to her to at least try and see that she's taken care of."

Owen looked quizzically to Ianto, who nodded in silent agreement.

"Okay," Owen conceded with a sigh. "Let's track the crazy cow down before she hurts someone else."

* * *

"I taught her well," Jack admitted miserably as the day wore on, turning into evening, and there was no sign of Suzie anywhere. It seemed she had completely dropped off the radar and, if Jack hadn't known better, he might have given in to the hope that perhaps she'd fled Cardiff altogether. He did know better, though, and that was the problem to which he currently had no solution.

Tosh looked up at Jack has he came to stand beside her desk, looking somewhat forlorn. She couldn't quite bring herself to smile. It hurt to have to hunt down a friend like this.

"I've been keeping track of PC Cooper," she said, hoping both to shift the topic of conversation and to give Jack something other than Suzie to focus on. It seemed to work, to a degree, as his gloomy expression fell away to be replaced by renewed concentration.

"How's her behaviour been?"

"She seems a little on the vague side," Tosh mused, "but that's probably just a side-effect of the retcon."

"Hopefully she'll put it down to getting smashed and let it go," Jack murmured. Tosh hesitated, looking back up at him warily.

"What are you going to do if she remembers?"

Jack was not so caught up in his own thoughts that he missed the audible worry in her voice. With some effort, he offered her a gentle smile.

"I'm not going to shoot her, if that's what you're thinking."

She tried to laugh his words off, but the way her posture relaxed just fractionally betrayed her. Smiling sadly, Jack leaned down to hug Tosh and kiss her forehead.

"You know why I don't trust the police. I know you've seen the footage."

She paled slightly, horrified at being caught out.

"Jack, I..."

"It's okay. I don't mind that you know. It's just that I haven't told Ianto about it yet. He thinks I hate the police because they represent the kind of authority that locked me up. I don't think he realises there's more to it than that."

"You are going to tell him, aren't you?" she asked. Jack sighed, and Tosh felt her heart break just a little at the distant and pained look in his eyes.

"There's so much I haven't been able to talk about yet. This is just one more thing. But, yeah... I will, when I'm ready to."

"You know he thinks we ought to hire her?" Tosh said tentatively. "If she remembers, that is."

Jack huffed.

"Over my dead body, and that's not an invitation or a suggestion."

"Jack," Tosh said softly, "we've already lost Suzie, no matter how this ends. We'll be a person down and we're going to have to replace her, preferably sooner rather than later. Look at it logically. She was accepted as a PC, so she must be reasonably competent. She'd be used to dealing with people. Aside from Ianto, none of us is especially good on that front. Lastly, if she remembers, it would at least be a way to keep her under surveillance."

Jack's lips twitched.

"So would locking her up in the cell next to Brad."

Tosh's expression hardened.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, Jack Harkness. Now please go away and let me work."

She turned back to her computer, not needing to look in order to know what expression was on Jack's face right then. As much as it went against her instinct to turn her back on him, at the same time it appalled her that he could even joke about locking someone up like that. She was simply not prepared to let him get away with it, even as a joke.

He was still behind her, and she was about to tell him again to go away when his arms suddenly folded around her in a fierce hug.

"I'm sorry. You're right. That was a bad thing to think."

Tosh sighed and allowed herself to relax into his embrace.

"Yes, it was, but I forgive you. Now..." She lightly slapped his arm. "Shoo! I really do have work to do."

Reassured, Jack bounded off towards his office. Tosh barely had time to settle back in to work, though, before Owen joined her.

"Got a problem?" she inquired, hoping her distracted tone would be enough to put the medic off. No such luck, unfortunately.

"No, not a problem," Owen said quietly. "I was just wondering, how are you doing? I mean, I know you and Suzie were friends, and this can't be easy for you."

Tosh melted a little at the concern in his voice. Owen may have had the propensity to be a bastard, but he'd been nothing but a gentleman towards her specifically since that first day when Jack had brought him to the Hub.

"Like I said this morning, we're friends... We _were_ friends, but we weren't exactly best buddies. I never saw this coming, Owen. Not for a second..."

The stress she'd felt since that morning's revelations finally took its toll and her voice broke. Owen didn't hug her, but his hands on her shoulders, massaging lightly, offered as much reassurance and comfort as Jack's bear hugs.

"It's not your fault, Tosh." He glanced towards Jack's office. "Not his fault, either. Sometimes, shit happens and no one can do anything to stop it."

Tosh looked back over her shoulder at him in wry amusement.

"I don't suppose you plan on saying that to Jack?"

Owen snorted.

"Not a chance. It's Teaboy's job to comfort Captain Sunshine, not mine."

He walked away before she could reply. Smiling ruefully to herself, Tosh reapplied herself to finding their errant colleague.

* * *

In hindsight, Ianto supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that it was him who found Suzie... or rather, Suzie who found him. He'd headed up to ensure the tourist office was properly locked and secure. If, by some slim chance, PC Cooper did break through the retcon, he didn't care to have her stumbling back into the Hub that way. At least, not without some forewarning, and they were all too focused on Suzie bloody Costello to be worrying about...

Ianto faltered as he caught a glimpse of the Plass on the CCTV monitor, and swore softly. PC Gwen Cooper was walking slowly across the Plass towards the water tower.

"_Ianto_?" Jack's voice sounded in his ear, reminding him that his comm. was still on. "_What's wrong?_"

"It's Cooper," he answered. "She's on the Plass."

"_Brilliant, just what we need. Get back down here so we can figure out what to do with her._"

Ianto took some small relief in that Jack had said 'with her', and not 'to her'. He turned to head back down into the Hub, and walked straight into Suzie. His mind skidded, and then went into overdrive as he realised that she had quite likely been hiding there the entire day. In all of the team's frantic efforts, not once had any of them considered that she might have been hiding right under their collective noses.

Seriously, he wanted to kick himself for the massive oversight.

In the semi-darkness, she looked truly menacing, a look that was aided by the alien knife clutched in her hands. Her expression betrayed her distress, though.

"Suzie, put it down," Ianto said in a deliberately low voice. Over the comms., he heard Jack utter a startled yelp, followed by a promise to be there as fast as possible.

"You know, I did actually like you, Ianto," Suzie said in a tremulous voice. "Despite everything, I really did, but you never wanted to give me a chance."

"Suzie, it isn't too late," Ianto pled, thinking of Jack's idea to send her to Flat Holm Island for rehabilitation. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry."

She lunged, and Ianto threw himself out of the way, landing on the floor with a jarring crash. Then she was on top of him and Ianto cried out in panic as he belatedly tried to defend himself, but there was no actual attack. Instead, she scrabbled for the keys in his jacket pocket. Then she was gone. He was still trying to lever himself off the floor when Jack burst in, with Owen close behind.

"Yan!" Jack cried out. Ianto was about to insist that he was fine when he became aware of an extremely unpleasant throbbing in his left arm. Suzie might have missed him with the knife, but it seemed that he hadn't escaped the altercation unscathed.

"Bugger," he mumbled. "I think my arm's broken."

"Easy," Owen said as he and Jack eased Ianto around into a sitting position. "Let me see."

He ran his hands down Ianto's arm, and sighed when the gentle touch induced a pained yelp.

"I'll need to check it with the scanner, but I reckon you're right. It is broken."

"C'mon," Jack said grimly. "Let's get you downstairs."

"No, you have to go after Suzie," Ianto insisted in between grunts of pain as Jack and Owen pulled him to his feet. "I'll be okay, Jack. Just go."

Jack looked torn, but the decision was taken out of his hands when Tosh's voice spoke over the comms.

"Jack, Suzie's out on the Plass with Cooper, and she's got her gun. I think she's going to shoot her!"

"The invisible lift," Owen said urgently. "If you go up on that, Suzie won't see you coming. Go!"

With an apologetic look at his lover, Jack took off back downstairs.

"You think he'll make it in time?" Owen wondered once Jack had gone. Ianto looked grim.

"I hope so. He has enough trauma to cope with already without the added extra of a guilt trip."

* * *

_to be continued..._


	6. A Reluctant Resolution

In the end, Jack saved Constable Gwen Cooper, but was unable to stop Suzie from killing herself. Grief-stricken and barely-functioning (the subsequent headache from being shot in the head did nothing to help, either), Jack had Ianto lock the glove and the knife away in secure storage, whilst he and Owen secured Suzie's body in one of the morgue lockers.

"And what about me?" Gwen asked after Jack had finally sent Tosh and Owen home. She was at once demanding and uncertain. Jack eyed her critically. By his own self-imposed rules, he couldn't retcon her again. There simply was not enough evidence available to know whether multiple doses of retcon might have a negative effect on the recipient, and he wasn't prepared to risk it on anyone, no matter how irritating he found them to be. The real question, therefore, was could she be trusted to keep her mouth shut? It was risky, but Tosh had been right. He couldn't even contemplate locking her up.

"Go home," he told her. "Don't tell anyone about any of this. Do you understand me? Not a soul."

She agreed without argument, probably more due to shock than anything else. Jack then added the proviso.

"Be back here tomorrow night, when you come off duty. I'll have made my decision by then on what to do with you."

He fancied that she paled just a little at the ominous words, but it seemed the implied threat wasn't enough to completely quash her defiance.

"And if I don't?"

He stared down at her intently.

"Do you really want me to have to come after you? Trust me, PC Cooper, there is _nowhere _you can go where I won't find you."

She left without another word, but Jack felt confident that she would return as ordered. Movement at his side drew his attention, and he sighed as Ianto slipped an arm around his waist.

"Ready to go home?"

"Mm, definitely," Jack said with a relieved sigh. As he turned, his gaze caught the brace on Ianto's arm, and he frowned darkly.

"Minor fracture, as it turns out," Ianto offered by way of reassurance. "Hairline. Owen thinks it'll be fully healed inside a month."

The relief on Jack's face was palpable, and he finally relaxed into a smile.

"Guess you're on desk duty for a while longer, huh?"

Ianto pulled a face. That hadn't occurred to him until now. Jack laughed, not unkindly, and leaned in to sneak a kiss.

"Just means I get to look after you, for once. Now, how about we head home? I'll order in, and we can spend a nice, quiet evening together."

"Sounds good to me," Ianto murmured. "Let's go home, Captain."

* * *

"Jack," Ianto said as Jack helped him to get comfortable on the couch, with the aid of extra cushions. It was sort of adorable, really, the way that Jack was so eager to take care of him.

"What?" Jack asked, frowning a little. "Have I forgotten something?"

"No, love," Ianto murmured. "Just sit with me for a moment. I want to ask you something, and I don't want you getting upset."

Jack's expression shifted minutely, but he nevertheless settled onto the couch beside Ianto.

"You want to ask about Cooper."

Ianto took it as a positive that Jack didn't immediately blow his stack at the mere mention of the woman.

"Yes. I know it all happened very abruptly, and we're still trying to accept it, but it doesn't change the fact that we're a person down now, and you need to decide what to do about Gwen Cooper."

Jack didn't answer immediately, lost in thought. Ianto didn't push. He knew well enough that Jack needed a chance to think the situation through without interference. When he did eventually speak, it was minus the usual taunts and mocking.

"Do you think she's really worth taking a chance on?"

It was the biggest about-face yet that Ianto had seen Jack do. He hesitated in answering, though. Suzie had seemed like a good choice, only for it to backfire on them all spectacularly. The other point was that it didn't matter how worthwhile an addition Gwen Cooper might seem whilst Jack continued to bear animosity towards her simply because of her police connections.

"I thought she might be," Ianto admitted. "Jack, how did she react when you showed Brad to her?"

"She coped okay. Didn't panic, at any rate. Actually, she seemed kind of stunned. It'd probably be more telling to see how she reacted to a weevil that wasn't locked up safely, knowing that it wasn't some bloke in a Halloween mask."

Ianto had to concede to that, but didn't pursue the thought. He didn't fancy giving Jack any ideas about a potential 'baptism of fire' for the woman if, by some miracle, he did change his mind about hiring her.

"And when you told her about Torchwood? I'm assuming that's what you talked about in the pub you took her to?"

Jack snorted.

"She thought we ought to be 'lending our resources' to help the police solve crimes. She threatened to tell her superiors about the glove."

"Okay, a bit of a self-righteous attitude," Ianto murmured, formulating a list in his mind. "What else?"

"They used me for live target practise."

Ianto's mind froze and for a long moment he didn't comprehend what Jack had just said.

"I'm sorry… What?"

Jack looked ill as he spoke, and he kept his gaze fixed very firmly on the ceiling.

"Years back, before Alex Hopkins took over, the person in charge of Torchwood Three loaned me out to the Cardiff Police. They chained me up and a small, select group was allowed to use me for live target practise… You know, so they could get used to killing a person. Except, they weren't exactly encouraged to ain for a quick kill."

Ianto swore softly.

"Cariad, I am so sorry. I had no idea. When did you remember all of this?"

"The night she saw us use the glove in the alley. At least now we know why I hate the sight of the police."

Ianto felt his heart sink. This was far more than just an ingrained dislike of an authority agency. This was a major trauma that would not be easily pushed aside. He didn't bother trying to suggest that Jack remember that Cardiff's current batch of recruits were not responsible for his sufferings. Jack knew that, but it did nothing to lessen the trauma for him.

"We'll give her a heavier dose of retcon tomorrow night," Ianto said. "If need be, I can get her transferred out of Cardiff, so she won't be at risk of breaking the retcon a second time."

Jack sighed softly, though Ianto thought he heard little relief in that sigh.

"Thank you." Jack paused, finally looking at his young lover. "I didn't deliberately keep it from you, Yan, honestly. I really didn't remember it until a few days ago."

Ianto spared Jack a puzzled look.

"I know, sweetheart."

"It's just, I don't want you to think I might be keeping anything from you, because I'm not. I tell you everything, because I love you, and people who love each other don't keep secrets."

In a flash, Ianto realised what Jack was saying. He knew Ianto was keeping something secret, and was giving him the opportunity to come clean – perhaps one last chance to do so before it harmed their relationship.

Ianto let his breath out in a rush. Okay, then…

"I'm sorry," he apologised softly. "I didn't mean to keep this from you. It's not that I didn't want you to know. It's just that I'm confused and a little bit scared, and I just don't know what's going on."

Jack hugged Ianto close, taking care not to jostle his injured arm.

"Talk to me. Tell me what's happened and maybe we can figure it out together."

"When Owen and I faced the Clyreney," Ianto confessed softly, "I was hurt. Badly hurt."

"How badly?"

Ianto braced himself for a negative reaction.

"I honestly thought I was going to die."

Jack tensed against him.

"You were hit with one of those arrows, weren't you?"

"It grazed me, ripped my thigh open. I also took a laser blast in the chest."

Jack was silent, and Ianto waited nervously as he absorbed what he'd just been told.

"But you didn't have a scratch on you," Jack pointed out. "I looked, and there wasn't even any blood."

"That's because I had Owen take me home first. Remember? I told you I was covered in Clyreney blood and I didn't want you to see it and panic. I _was _covered in Clyreney blood, but there was a fair bit of my own there as well."

"But you weren't hurt!" Jack burst out.

"And that's what frightened me," Ianto told him. "When we left that site, I was bleeding out. I wasn't going to make it back to Cardiff alive. But then… Jack, I _healed_."

Jack stared at him, torn between shock and disbelief.

"You mean, like me?"

"I guess so, yes."

"Why did you hide it from me?" Jack asked, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice and expression.

"Because I was scared," Ianto said. "I didn't know what was going on. I still don't know. Am I like you now? Or is there some other explanation? Jack… Please try to understand. I love you so much, but I don't want to be immortal."

In the instant before Jack's emotional mask slammed down, Ianto saw a world of hurt in his eyes, and he hated himself for it.

"I understand."

"Jack…"

"We can call the Doctor and he'll be able to tell. He'll know if you've become like me, just by looking at you."

"Jack, sweetheart…"

"Because I get why you wouldn't want to be like me. _I_ don't want to be like me…"

Ianto leaned in and silenced Jack with a fierce kiss.

"Stop that," Ianto murmured against Jack's lips. "Now, I didn't say that to hurt you. God knows the last thing I want is to hurt you, but we promised to be honest with each other, right?" Jack mumbled something incoherent under his breath and Ianto suppressed an urge to smile. "The truth is, I wish I could say that I commit to you for the rest of my life, and know that would be enough. It breaks my heart to know that it isn't."

"You really don't think you're like me, though," Jack said tremulously.

"No. I think there's something happening here that needs to be investigated, but I don't think it's that I've been granted immortality alongside you"

Jack risked a glance at Ianto.

"Would… Would you hate me if you were? Like me, I mean."

"Cariad, no," Ianto assured him. "No, of course I wouldn't hate you. If it did turn out that that's what's happened, then we'll work through it, but I really don't think it's the case and I'm certainly not going to tempt fate to find out. Tomorrow, after we've dealt with PC Cooper, we'll call the Doctor together and find out what's going on."

"Okay," Jack whispered. They sat together in silence for a while before Ianto spoke.

"Will you be all right?"

Jack uttered a faint whimper and rubbed agitatedly at his temples.

"My head hurts, Yan."

It was a deflection from what had become an uncomfortable conversation, and they both knew it. Ianto didn't call him on it, though. He knew Jack was deeply upset, and bullying him into talking would do neither of them any good.

"Would you like me to run a bath for you?"

Jack looked hopefully at him.

"With bubbles?"

Ianto smiled fondly.

"Yes, sweetheart, with bubbles."

* * *

Somewhere, in the midst of Jack's internal warring to suppress his childish tendencies in favour of a more mature adult persona, one quirk had escaped unscathed and that was Jack's innocent joy in having a bubble bath. While Ianto sat by the foot of the large tub, Jack splashed happily without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. It didn't seem to matter how bad the day might have been. Put Jack in a bath with plenty of frothy bubbles, and he instantly reverted back to his inner child.

The sight of Jack so carefree never failed to put a smile on Ianto's face, and this was no exception. Really, the only thing missing from the scene was the stereotypical rubber ducky. Ianto couldn't resist a low chuckle as Jack blew into the bubbles, only to end up with them all over his face.

"Bleugh," Jack spat, after opening his mouth at the wrong moment.

"I thought you would have realised by now that they don't taste very nice," Ianto teased. Jack pulled a face, accepting the clean washcloth that Ianto offered him.

"Didn't mean to do that. Yan, do you remember the first time you gave me a bubble bath?"

"I remember. I'm sorry for frightening you that day. When I think back on it, I'm lucky you didn't attack me out of panic."

Jack shook his head.

"I wouldn't have hurt you, no matter how scared I was. You'd already shown you were trying to help me. I understood that much, at least."

Ianto moved to sit carefully on the edge of the bathtub, and accepted Jack's outstretched hand without hesitation.

"What's going through your mind, cariad?" Ianto asked.

"We've been through a lot," Jack said slowly. "We've made mistakes... me, more than you."

"We're not keeping score, sweetheart."

Jack grunted unintelligibly. Sighing, Ianto ruffled Jack's hair a little. His earlier exuberance had resulted in soap getting into his hair. It would need to be washed out. Ianto couldn't help but wonder whether maybe it had been a deliberate ploy on Jack's part. It was almost obscene, how much the man liked having his hair washed.

"We need sleep, love," Ianto suggested gently. "Neither one of us is thinking particularly clearly."

"I was lonely," Jack said abruptly. Ianto blinked. That was the second time in as many hours that Jack had caught him off-guard with an out-of-the-blue statement.

"I'm sorry, Jack," Ianto apologised. "I don't know what you mean."

"Before you came along, I was lonely," Jack confessed. "Before you, the only person who treated me like a human was Alex Hopkins. Aside from him..."

"I know," Ianto murmured, sensing a fresh onslaught of emotions from Jack.

"When we were hiding in Jackie's home," Jack went on, "when I kept begging you not to leave, I wasn't just asking you to stay around... you know, like we are now. I wanted you to stay with me forever, because you make me not feel lonely anymore. And I know it's selfish and I shouldn't wish for it, but I do because I love you and I don't ever want to lose you!"

Both men were crying before they realised it, and Ianto leaned down to wrap his good arm around Jack's shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Yan," Jack sobbed. "But when you told me, I couldn't help it. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd got my wish."

Ianto kissed the top of Jack's head, heedless of the soapy taste.

"You have nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. I promise you that I'll give you as long as possible. It just won't be forever."

Jack rested his head on Ianto's thigh.

"I should just focus on here and now," he murmured sadly. Ianto stroked his fingers lightly over Jack's temple. His heart broke for Jack, but there was little comfort he could offer. They sat in companionable silence for a while, and Ianto was about to suggest that Jack vacate the steadily cooling water when Jack spoke again.

"I suppose we could put her on a trial basis, and retcon her if she doesn't work out."

Ianto's breath caught.

"You're talking about Cooper?"

Jack nodded.

"Mm."

"Dare I ask why the change of heart?"

"Well, you accepted it when I brought in Owen, and then Suzie. You argued a bit, but you accepted it and trusted my judgement. You haven't said 'I told you so' yet, either, over Suzie."

"I wouldn't do that," Ianto assured him.

"And believe me, I appreciate it. The point I'm trying to make is that you trusted me. I should trust you as well. If you really think this woman will make a good addition to the team, then I'm willing to give her a chance."

Ianto kissed Jack tenderly.

"Thank you, Jack. That's all I'm asking."

* * *

Jack half-expected Cooper not to turn up the next evening but, to her credit, she was there as promised. She looked justifiably scared, Jack mused, but also defiant. He wasn't sure whether that impressed him, or just irritated him.

With a slight nod to Ianto, he then escorted her to the best place he could think of where they could talk in absolute private – the roof of the Millennium Centre.

"Bloody hell," Gwen huffed as she paused to regain her equilibrium after a long climb up a somewhat rickety ladder. "You don't come up here very often, do you?"

Jack gazed up at the darkening sky. It was going to be a gorgeous, clear night, perfect for lying under the skylight with Ianto, watching the stars and talking quietly about all the incredible things that humans had to look forward to in the future.

"I like rooftops," he said finally, simply. "The higher, the better. Not scared, are you?"

He couldn't keep a slightly taunting tone out of his voice. Beside him, Gwen snorted.

"Only if you're planning to toss me off it."

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. One point to her for a good come-back.

"No," he assured her. "All else aside, Ianto hates it when I make unnecessary messes."

The slightly black humour was lost on her.

"I saw you," she said, her voice betraying her confusion and distress. "I saw you get shot in the head and then get back up like nothing happened."

Now that retcon was off the agenda, at least for the time being, he decided there was no point in trying to cover his tracks. Regardless, to deny it at this stage would seem awfully hypocritical in his own eyes given that he'd already forced her to confront the truth of what she'd seen in the alley.

"I can't die," he said simply. If anything, the stress showing on the woman's face got worse.

"Okay."

Jack bristled just a little. It should as though she'd decided he was a loon, and she was just trying to humour him until she could make her escape.

"But I can't," he insisted, acutely aware that he was at risk of descending into a tantrum. "Something happened a long time ago, far away from here. I was killed and something brought me back. Now, I can't die."

She finally seemed to accept it, to his relief.

"You didn't tell the others. Toshiko or Owen."

Jack looked down sharply at her. Was she really assuming that just because they hadn't been there to witness it, that Tosh and Owen didn't know? It seemed that was the very assumption she was making. And why was she overlooking Ianto?

As she finally lifted her gaze to meet his critical stare, Jack made a split second decision to let her keep thinking that she was the only one who knew the truth about him. It was the perfect opportunity to test her ability to keep her mouth shut. If she blabbed to anyone, even her fellow teammates, he would know she couldn't be trusted and she'd be retconned back to puberty.

"I find it best not to tell people," he answered vaguely. "They tend to freak out."

Which was true, given the way that Gwen had suffered a minor breakdown the previous night. He conceded that she'd recovered much quicker than expected, but she'd still had a minor meltdown. A melodramatic sigh brought him back to the present.

"What does it matter?" she said with an air of resignation that, in his opinion, was a little overdone. "You're just going to take my memories again."

"Now why would I do that?"

He was mocking her again, though she seemed to completely miss the inflection in his tone, instead giving him a withering look. Jack suppressed a desire to disregard the agreement he'd made with Ianto, and just shove the woman off the roof. He would not, under any circumstances, be emotionally blackmailed, but he was also prepared to give the woman a tiny degree of leeway, given that the circumstances of the employment that was about to be on offer were markedly different to any of her potential new colleagues. Really, she didn't have a clue.

"We have a job going spare," he told her. "Do you want it?"

She looked incredulous, an expression that Jack took some comfort in. She wasn't taking anything for granted, at least. That was one positive in her favour.

"Why me?"

Convenience, he wanted to say. Ianto's many lessons about manners had stuck fast, though, and he refrained from being openly rude.

"Because you were right," he conceded with some reluctance. "Maybe we can do more to help."

She had no idea how patronising he was really being. Ianto, however, would know and given that Jack was sure he was listening in, he fully expected to get an earful later at home.

"So," he said, "are you interested?"

He wanted an answer quickly, so he could go home and cuddle with his Ianto on the rug under the skylight. He was pleased and grateful when she didn't delay in answering.

"Yes," she said abruptly. "Yeah, I am."

Jack fought an urge to sigh again. He'd half-wished that she would have said no, but it was no real surprise that she'd said yes. He glanced down at her surreptitiously, and took in the slightly overwhelmed but still determined look on her face.

He'd promised Ianto that he would give her a chance, and he would. At the same time, though, he would watching her like a hawk – in more ways than one. He and Ianto had already tapped all of her and her boyfriend's phones, and Toshiko had hacked the home computers, enabling them to monitor and, if necessary, intercept any incriminating evidence. For at least the next six months, everything Gwen Cooper did or said would be strictly monitored.

Whether she would work out, he didn't know, but he owed it to Ianto to let her try. What happened from here on, only time would tell.

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
